GARCILASSO DE LA VEGA Le Commentaire Royal, ou L’Histoire des Yncas, Roys du Peru ; Contenant leur origine […], leur Establissement, leur Idolatrie, leurs Sacrifices, leurs Vies, leurs Loix […] avant que les Espagnols s’en fissent maistres, au temps de Huascar, & d’Atahuallpa.

Palau, 354820 ; Sabin, 98743 ; Chadenat, 6610 ; Brunet, II, col. 1483 ; USTC 6034334 ; Medina, 658, p. 164 ; Arentz, 269.

First edition of the first French translation by Jean Baudouin of the Commentarios Reales. An exceptional copy bound in contemporary citron Morocco.

The natural son of the conquistador Sebastián Garcilasso de la Vega and the Inca princess Isabel Chimpu Ocllo, daughter of King Topa Hualpo and therefore granddaughter of the Inca Huayan Capac, Garcilasso dela Vega, known as El Inca (1539-1616), was born in Cuzco, the former capital of the Inca Empire. Baptized under the patronymic of Gómez Suárez de Figueroa, he did not adopt his father’s name until 1561, under which he distinguished himself as a writer. Garcilaso’s first ten years were decisive for his culture, as he spent them in the company of the Inca nobles, his mother’s relatives, where he spoke Quechua as his mother tongue. After the death of his father, the young man left for Spain in 1560. He never returned to Peru.

In this vast history of the Inca Empire, Garcilasso de la Vega strove to reconcile his father’s and mother’s cultural heritage. Considered the first great Peruvian writer, Garcilasso de la Vega is also the first Latin American to write about America. This work is a unique account of the history of the Incas as seen by a writer with a perfect knowledge of the local language and well versed in the customs of the Inca people.

The last part of the text is devoted to the local animals (domestic and wild) and the cultivation of the land. There are chapters on horses, oxen, poultry (pigeons), sows, etc., followed by articles on wheat, vines and wine, olives, asparagus and other fruits and herbs. Other chapters deal with cannibalism, the bodies of mummified kings, tobacco, etc. The book ends with a very detailed index.

Garcilasso, who felt himself to be ‘Inca to the core’, was no stranger to Indian dynastic claims. Significantly, Garcilaso does not call the Indians ‘Barbarians’, as other contemporary chroniclers did, but ‘Gentiles’. Garcilaso offers the reader an idyllic vision of the Tahuantin Suyu (Inca Empire).

Translated into the main European languages, the Commentarios reales were a best-seller in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The engraving on the title-frontispiece depicts Emperor Manco Cápac and Queen Mama Ocllo in front of a procession in the Temple of the Sun in Cuzco, Garcilaso de la Vega’s native Peruvian city.

Bound in the Royal Bindery

A very luxuriously bound copy preserved in a near contemporary citron Morocco binding by the royal bindery workshop, decorated with the distinguished ‘dentelle du Louvre’.

Some occasional toning, some occasional small marginal tears, engraved title very slightly shaved at foot; small portion missing to head of spine to volume III.

Provenance: Lucius Wilmerding (1879-1949 ; his book plate, sale of the collection New York, II, 5-6 March 1951, lot 268, sold for $140 : “an interesting specimen displaying the “Dentelles du Louvre” borders”) — most likely acquired by Pierre Berès for Jorge Ortiz Linares.